With the proliferation of networking, exchange of documents of all types between various types of devices and applications has become very common. Typical examples include exchange of text, audio, and video files via email, downloading of files using File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and video or audio streaming over networks. Mobile devices allow users to quickly access email and other attached contents outside of home and office space.
The increased use of content exchange over secure and unsecure networks also increases the risk of leaking confidential information to unintended users. Methods such as public/private key encryption, device or application level password protection, and cryptographic digital signatures provide protection for exchanged content to some degree. However, there is still a significant risk of confidential information being accessed by unintended users when they gain possession of the receiver device such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).
One protection method provided by Information Right Management (IRM) allows sender to specify how content receiver access the information. However, IRM technology grants information rights by checking the receiver's email address and matches the address with a sender-predefined list. If any unintended user picks up the lost device, they may be able to access the information by getting information through the device mailbox.